How Sony Is Re-Investing Itself In India

Is Sony India reaching for the moon when it re-positions itself solely as a premium market player in India, which is its fourth-largest market globally?

- Avishek Banerjee

Sunil Nayyar was the head of Sony’s North America retail operations when he was asked to return to India to spearhead operations here. The excitement of coming back home was somewhat marred by the anxiety of confronting a market that was “cost-conscious”. Two Sony brands that Nayyar cherished, namely Vaio laptops and Ericsson smartphones, had already been pulled out of the Indian market by Sony Corporation as part of its global restructuring exercise.

The new managing director of Sony India, which recently celebrated its silver jubilee, was determined though, that the multinational would not be playing the “volumes game” in this market. It would be a player in the premium range of electronic products. “In our country,people drive a Maruti, people drive Audi (and) people drive a BMW. And there’s a reason to drive those cars. So, the driving pleasure is different in each brand. We talk of the same thing when it comes to our televisions and that’s what I’m trying to do continuously in this market since I came back because I learned this from United States,” says Nayyar, who is the first Indian to helm Sony India.

“For example, you go to any of the (electronics) stores (such as) Croma or anywhere, they will tell you why you should buy a Sony, although it’s a 20/30/40 per cent premium (over other products).That’s big money to pay − like people pay ten times more for a luxury car. So whether it is digital imaging, home theatre, a headphone or television, Sony is only talking about premium,” says Nayyar, speaking exclusively with BW Businessworld. We notice Nayyar’s festish for premium brands like a Tag Heuer and BMW.